Local mother suffers travel nightmare when son becomes ill on cruise
What started out as a dream vacation cruise on the Gulf of Mexico, quickly turned into a harrowing ordeal for a local mother when her son’s appendix ruptured at sea.
Christie Johnson’s 12-year-old son Peyton was all of a sudden seriously ill and couldn’t stop vomiting.
“I knew something was wrong because the pain got worse,” Johnson said. “It didn’t get better.”
The Carnival Cruise ship which left New Orleans days before had to make an emergency stop in Progreso, Mexico.
There, Johnson called an ambulance, but because she couldn’t pay hundreds of dollars in cash up front, the ambulance left.
After pleading with the hospital, Johnson and her son were picked up and admitted. The emergency surgery would cost more than $3,000.
“I said, ‘You act like I have a choice, like I have the money to pay for the surgery and I’m just not going to do it.’ I don’t have a choice. I’d die if it would save him.”
Family from Wisconsin helped pay for the surgery. But now the task of getting home was another nightmare.
The family hadn’t traveled with passports, only passport cards usable on land or sea. Johnson said she had to wait for emergency passports to be able to fly to Houston.
“We got emergency passports from the U.S. consulate in Mexico so we could fly back to the U.S.,” Johnson said. “I’m just thankful for everything, for everybody.
Peyton is getting more tests at Texas Children’s Hospital until he gets the all-clear to head home to Ohio with his mother.
Carnival Cruise said on its website that it highly recommends all travelers always have their passports.
A GoFundMe page for Peyton has already helped raise almost $20,000 and Carnival Cruise care agents also donated more than $3,000 for Peyton’s bills.
A 12-year-old boy had to leave a cruise and check in for surgery at a Mexican hospital after his appendix ruptured. His mother tells KPRC 2 that she and her son had a difficult time getting back to the states.
Leave a Reply